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Fifteen years ago
Terri Schiavo's heart stopped and she suffered brain damage as a result of a
self-inflicted potassium deficiency brought on by an eating disorder. |
| She has been kept
alive by feeding tubes in a medically-defined persistent vegetative state all these
years--thin, as she doubtless would have wished, but presumably still unfulfilled--at the
insistence of her parents, who feel Terri might one day "recover". |
| Today the world is
daily forced to confront a grotesque-looking Terri while the question of her living or
dying is played out in the courts, in Washington, DC, and in the media as an issue of the
right to live and the right to die. |
| According to an ABC
News poll, 87% of those surveyed said they would not want to be
kept alive if in Terri Schiavo's condition, and 65% said a spouse should have the final
say in what happens to a patient, as opposed to parents. |
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